THIRD PERSON

The two Pokemon that had gathered in the room held completely still as their eyes locked onto the bloodied corpse beneath them. The moment the shock had settled, the Gallade wasted no time in venting his overwhelmed emotions.

"O-Oh god..." Galant's voice croaked as he shook under the pressure. "A-Arceus, please...what the f-fuck!"

Leon did not say a word, his eyes were glued to Talus' rotting corpse.

The poor midday Lycanroc's pupils were fading along with any colorful life to his brown tone. A patch of blood soaked the top of his head as the rest pooled in large amounts under him. The side of his head was seemingly ripped open by an incision as a knife stained with his blood lay next to him.

Finally, the jackal managed the courage to speak.

"I-I..." Leon stammered, his attempt now in vain as he couldn't form any thought as to what was happening.

They were so confident that nothing was going to happen, yet their greatest fear had occurred.

Talus the Lycanroc is dead, his murderer still on the loose.

"We need...to tell people." The Lucario shuddered, his head shaking in immediate realization. "We have to go back!"

Right before they could say anything more, a pair of footsteps—clearly in a hurry—made their way into the room.

"Who screamed?" Loki quickly questioned as she trudged through the garage connector. Her eyes had to adjust as she made her way into the darker room, but the moment the smell and the sight of the body hit her simultaneously, she let out a frightened yelp in surprise.

Leon couldn't say anything in response as the sound of an intercom screeched throughout the building. A static and ironically friendly tune chimed before the voice of Sam was heard.

"A body has been discovered! Everyone meet in the garage to begin your investigation!"

Even though the jackal was still processing the other canine's death, he couldn't help but replay Sam's words in his head.

His thoughts landed on the word 'investigation'. Was this what Sam was hoping for?

On queue, the rumbling of numerous footsteps made their way across the hall and directly into the room.

If there was any sense of organization, it was already gone by now as everyone in the room let out their own appropriate reactions to the scene.

A wave of despair-filled screams and curses filled the air as the room dispersed to either approach the corpse or run away from it.

However, the loudest one in the room currently was Lancer, his brother.

The midnight Lycanroc had weakly limped his way up to the lifeless body of Talus and sobbed against his fur. Not a word was said by him, just the sounds of his cries leaving no room for silence.

"Is anyone here medically trained?" Rayne timidly walked up to the pooling blood next to the corpse. It was quite a shock to everyone seeing even she was frightened.

"What are t-they gonna do, bring him back to fucking life!?" Vince spat out, his webbed hand waving at nowhere in particular.

"It's to see if we can get an autopsy, dumbass!" Inu shoved her elbow against the Greninja's chest.

"Don't fucking touch me, bitch!" He retorted.

"I need everyone here to be quiet!" Vanta called from the center of the room, gaining at least half of everyone's attention. "I know this is all too stressful, but if we stay calm, we can solve this!"

"W-What? You want us to know who d-did this?" Aubra stammered out in confusion, her eyes avoiding the gorey sight in front of her. "I-I can't do this, I have to leave."

"I...agree..." Loki whimpered out, tears beginning to stream down her cheek. It was about time everyone's next wave of emotions began to intrude; despair.

The group was split into fractions throughout the mansion, one to settle down and relax, one to bicker and argue with each other, and one to investigate.

"Okay..." Vanta heaved a very stressed sigh. "We have to figure out who did this. None of us here are experienced with medical shit, so we have to wing it."

"And if we get it wrong?" Luster, whose expression seemed a bit distorted from anger, quickly doubted the canine's idea.

"We have no choice..." Leon joined. "I will not stop until we bring justice."

"Well, it's a good thing you have a heart of justice!" Sam's uninvited voice called from the corner of a shelf. The group's eyes immediately latched to sternly glare in her direction.

"You either be quiet or help us." Vanta barked at the Braixen with disgust.

"Calm down, your majesty." She quickly teased and made her way near the body. "I am here to help you."

"How so?" Luster muttered under his breath. "Giving us another motive?"

"Nope! I'm here to tell you all about the rules of the killing game, now that it has truly begun." Sam crossed her arms and grinned widely. "You have both an advantage and disadvantage here."

A small wave of silence filled the air before Leon shattered the ice.

"I'm listening." He uttered with concern.

"You all have to investigate as much as you can before the trial begins in two hours. When your time is up, you will be forced to gather in a certain part of the mansion. You then will be escorted to a trial room, where you have limited time to discuss evidence and thoughts on who the culprit is."

"And...if we get it wrong?" Luster frowned at the thought.

"Everyone will be punished, and the murderer gets to leave alive." Sam waved her paw in the air before chuckling. "But! If you do get it right, the culprit will be punished instead."

"This 'punishment' is...exactly what I think it is, right?" Leon exhaled, earning a small nod from the Braixen.

"Yup! It's death." She answered flatly.

"Arceus..." Vanta scoffed while clawing at the ground. "I can't believe we're going through with this."

"You have no other choice..." Sam flashed the Umbreon a small, tormenting frown. "Awe...but you could always kill and leave if you're smart enough."

"Shut up and leave us alone already." Luster hissed, his tail flicking with annoyance.

"Uhuh, okay." The Braixen shrugged and snapped, causing her form to disappear.

Just like everyone predicted, the room went silent without the sound of Sam teasing or harassing people in the area.

By then, a small group of Pokemon willed up the courage to return, leaving nothing but the thought of investigating lingering through the air.

"Okay..." Loki took a shallow breath as she entered the room, physically psyching the fear off herself. "Let's get to work..."

"What happened to you?" Vanta shot the remark from halfway across the garage, earning a deep snarl from the Zoroark.

"Keeping it together, not everyone is as heartless as you." The black fox quickly retorted, pointing an accusatory claw at the Umbreon.

"I'm not heartless, but I'm not an emotionally vulnerable girl."

Before Loki could air out her frustrations, an unsure Gallade approached from beside her and held a blade out to interrupt her.

"Please...let's just go over what we know." Galant muttered.

Surprisingly, his words were enough to ease the tension and begin the investigation.

"Okay, well, since no one here is medically trained, we're going to have to go off what we see." The Umbreon mentioned as he leaned closer to gaze at the midday Lycanroc's fatal wound. "There's also a very big cut on the side of his head."

"The murder weapon seems to be dropped next to the corpse." Leon noted as his eyes scrolled across the garage to analyze further.

"That's...a knife from the kitchen, right?" Loki mentioned, her body shifting to face the open door behind them.

"R-Right..." Galant stepped in to agree, his expression still unsure about the situation. "The issue is...we have no idea who could've gone out at night."

"Let's not focus on that yet." Vanta ordered, stepping away from the body to walk further into the garage. "Let's just keep looking."

"There could be more evidence." Leon muttered and stepped towards a different section of the garage, shuffling through the iron tools.

"I'm...going to look around the rest of the mansion then." Loki called, quickly turning away from the group and trudging through the garage connector.

LOKI'S POV

I should've known something was bound to go wrong. Out of all the things I expected to wake up to, I didn't expect someone to actually do it.

I thought we all agreed not to. The group understood that the idea of murdering someone for their own benefit is wrong...

My body is still shaking, and from what I could tell, everyone else outside of the garage was equally as stressed.

I could stand there and admire everyone who was able to stay calm, but I'd much rather recollect myself and try to be useful.

Walking through the empty halls, I realized that Inu and Lancer were recklessly yelling in the background. Following their voices was Zantai, who seemed to try and shut them up.

Whenever I turned the corner, the two immediately locked eyes with me. Lancer was a fountain of tears, and Inu was directly in front of him with her arms crossed.

"You aight?" Vince muttered from beside me, not realizing he had snuck up on me.

"Yeah..." I exhaled, walking past the two arguing Pokemon and making my way into the kitchen.

"Are ya sure?" The Greninja trailed behind me towards the kitchen.

"Why do you care now, Vince?" I scoffed, my eyes scrolling around the kitchen to search for the knife rack.

"What?" The blue frog paused. "One of us just died, no? Why wouldn't I?"

"I don't know..." I shook my head. "You have every right to be, but that doesn't excuse you for being an asshole before all of this."

"Right." Vince sneered and crossed his arms. "An asshole."

Ignoring his words, I shuffled things around to find the rack I was looking for, along with an empty knife slot.

"Hm..." I hummed to myself and pulled open drawers to try and find more evidence.

"Hey, uh...Loki?"

"Not now, Vince." I uttered with a stern voice, kneeling to shuffle around the plates in the cabinets.

"No, no, I'm really serious right now."

After his words, I decided to humor him and turn around.

The Greninja had pulled over a large decorative plant and stuck his webbed hand into the dirt, slowly drawing a sharp rock. I was about to question him before he pointed the sharp end at me, revealing the dried crimson red liquid coating the material.

"What the..." I mumbled, rising onto my feet.

"Yeah, it also looks kind of different from the other rocks in the plant." Vince mentioned, backing away from me. "We should tell them."

"Mhm, that was...a good find." I let out a humoring chuckle.

Okay, maybe he was onto something then. Still doesn't excuse what he did earlier.

Aside from what we had found, everything was looking uncertain. The group is under a lot of confusion, we don't know who could have committed this crime, and Sam got exactly what she wanted.

To head back into that garage took a lot of courage, but whenever we mustered it up and stepped inside, we found ourselves halting at the newfound sight.

The guys had already moved a lot of heavy furniture around to reveal a mess of blood splattering across the steel wall. Suddenly, the rock we found made no sense.

Is someone planting fake evidence?